Tara Rum Pum
Siddharth Anand
The movie’s single biggest gimmick is the fact that it was largely shot in New York City.
Indeed, it is quite a treat to see the two Bollywood stars Saif Ali Khan and Rani Mukerji boogeying against the backdrop of familiar landmarks like Times Square, Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty.
Pity then that the rest of the movie does not measure up. The story of a race-car driver RV (Khan) who faces a string of setbacks in his life is uninspiring and holds no surprises.
There's also the unexpected sour note when RV is urged to finish off his opponent during the climactic race.
What seems to be a promising vehicle turns out to be something of a lemon.
(ST)

Protege
(Andy Lau/Daniel Wu/Louis Koo/Zhang Jingchu/109 minutes)
This is a serious movie with an anti-drug message. The problem is that it never lets you forget that.
The characters all fulfil a specific role and they are clearly labelled as such on the DVD cover - pusher, wife, banker, protege, victim.
While Lau chews some scenery as the drug kingpin, Koo is a disaster in a buffoonish drug addict role and Anita Yuen is hardly given anything to do as Lau’s wife.
The pacing is as uneven as the performances. The most interesting sequences are those on the cooking and packing of the drugs. On the other hand, the scenes set in the Golden Triangle feel too much like a National Geographic special on drugs.
It could have ended on a truthful, albeit sombre and chilling, note but the film-makers opt for false optimism instead.
The DVD comes with an additional Cantonese audio track and a making-of that reveals one more sobering fact - of the world’s 60 billion people, 2 billion take drugs.
(ST)

Idiocracy
(Luke Wilson/Maya Rudolph/Dax Shepard/84 minutes)
A mildly amusing film from Mike Judge which presents the scenario: What happens if animated lunkheads Beavis and Butt-Head grew up and everyone else was just like them? Possibly the scariest vision of the future committed to film thus far.
After a present-day US Army experiment gone awry - is there any other kind? - test subjects Joe Bowers (the affably low-key Wilson) and Rita (Rudolph) awaken, instead of one year later, in 2505.
The all-too-average Joe is now the smartest man on earth and he has to overcome mind-numbing stupidity, prejudices and plain bad taste in order to save the world from itself.
There’s a serious point or two about the dumbing-down of popular culture and the dangers of crass commercialism. But it’s a bit rich coming from the creator of Beavis and Butt-Head.
The DVD includes deleted scenes, including an amusing-if-you’re-in-the-mood Museum Of Fart scene.
(ST)

200 Pounds Beauty
Kim Yong Hwa
This movie is a lightweight despite being a massive box-office hit in its native South Korea. With over six million tickets sold, it is the country’s top-grossing romantic comedy.
Director and co-writer Kim Yong Hwa helmed this film, which is based on a Japanese manga by Suzuki Yumiko: “Does beauty tell your fate or what?”
In this romcom, the topic of plastic surgery is placed front and centre.The plus-sized Hanna (Kim A Joong) is kept hidden as the ghost singer for pop idol Ammy. She doesn’t mind being out of the limelight as she’s nursing a secret crush on producer Sang Jun (Joo Jin Mo of 2001’s Musa The Warrior).
After being humiliated by Ammy at Sang Jun’s birthday party, Hanna decides to take a drastic step – plastic surgery from head to toe. This is no mere nip and tuck but a full-on rip-it-apart and suck-all-the-fat-up undertaking.
Following the operations, Hanna adopts a new name, Jenny, and is soon singing in front of an audience. She even starts getting attention from her dream guy, but the past begins to catch up with her.
According to one (supposedly conservative) estimate, 50 per cent of South Korean women in their 20s have had some form of cosmetic surgery and in another poll, 70 per cent of men said they would also consider surgical improvements. Still, there are decidedly conflicting attitudes towards the procedure despite its prevalence.
Sang Jun dismisses it as a choice for those without self-confidence. Yet he says he is fine with it – as long as it is not his girlfriend going under the knife.
At the movie's conclusion, Jenny stops living a lie, wins some fans, loses others and even gets her man. The troubling message here seems to be beauty really is skin deep.
What holds the movie together is Kim’s performance. She endears herself as the sweet-natured Hanna, and emanates a giddy infectious joy as the newly minted Jenny.
Best of all, she manages to convey the gaucheness and vulnerability that Hanna feels even after turning into Jenny.
But Kim’s performance alone is not enough to give this overlong and uneven movie the lift it needs.
(ST)

Super Fans
Eric Kot
The title already tells you who the target audience is. So if you’re not a super fan of Hong Kong stars Charlene Choi, Leo Ku and Kevin Cheng, don’t bother. And if you are, approach with caution.
The plot revolves around devoted fan Susie (Choi) and the lengths she would go to for her idol Sam Lee. She ropes in her childhood friend Kim (Ku) in her efforts until a close encounter reveals Lee’s ugly side.
Susie then switches allegiance and begins to support Lee’s rival David Cheng (Cheng). Meanwhile, Kim pines for her in the background.
Given that Susie is such an unlikeable character – selfish, manipulative and immature – you never see the point of the attraction. The romance sub-plot is contrived, cliched and utterly without a clue.
The topic of obsessive fan culture is a potentially rich one, but the lack of laughs, a point of view or actual characters, makes it hard to tell what the point of this entire exercise is.
(ST)

Smokin' Aces
Joe Carnahan
The very long and clunky exposition essentially sets up the fact that everyone, from cops to paid assassins, is after Buddy “Aces” Israel (Jeremy Piven), a Las Vegas showman turned crime boss turned snitch.
Stylistically, the movie fancies itself as an Ocean’s Eleven, with the paths of those after Israel criss-crossing at his hotel hangout. But Aces lacks the lightness of touch and spirit of the former.
Joe Carnahan, who co-produced, wrote and directed the film, rounded up an eclectic and diverse ensemble cast – including Ben Affleck, Jason Bateman, Andy Garcia, Ray Liotta, Matthew Fox, Alicia Keys – but to no avail. The lucky ones are those killed off first.
Carnahan throws everything onto the screen, hoping that something, anything, sticks. For a brief moment or two, the toxic slime stays up there – and then slithers right off.
(ST)

To Sir With Love
Lim Dae-wung
After 16 years, a reunion takes place between the now wheelchair-bound Mrs Park and her students. It seems, though, that everyone has an axe to grind with their former teacher.
The set-up holds some promise but it becomes a little repetitive going through the back-stories of all the students.
The murder scenes are gruesome affairs, and in keeping with the school theme, feature a pocket pen-knife, a stapler and other stationery of torture. It is the scatological fetish, however, that tips the movie into overkill.
The lesson here? Do right by your students and fellow classmates – you never know who’s going to turn out to be a psycho.
(ST)

Jolin: Dancing Diva Singapore Concert 2007
Singapore Indoor Stadium
The lights dimmed and the fans went wild as light sticks danced and screams rang out.
It didn’t take much to get the crowd going. And that was a good thing for Taiwanese singer Jolin Tsai.
The concert began dramatically as she was lifted up and then let back down gently, all the while striking nimble poses astride two rings.Dressed in a sparkling blue costume with a matching headpiece perched jauntily askew, she teased the crowd with slow, sensuous movements.
Then she launched into Pulchritude, the opening track of her latest album Dancing Diva, followed by Signature Pose and Mr Q. The three fast-paced songs gave her a chance to show off some slick moves and the enthusiastic crowd lapped them up.
In keeping with her sexy dancing queen image, her costumes were figure-hugging affairs which flaunted her curves. Twice, she removed an outer robe to reveal a skimpier ensemble underneath.
Tsai, 26, has also built an impressive body of hits over the past four years,and the two-hour concert was packed with memorable songs from her last four albums.
It quickly became clear, however, that she was not quite up to the mark in the vocals department. She was drowned out at points when it came to the lower registers and strained at others which called for high notes.
She did herself no favours by covering pop diva Faye Wong’s Reminiscence, her sometimes shaky rendition paling in comparison to the latter’s pristine crooning.
Even the dance moves failed to impress after a while. Mostly, they saw her twirling her hands about and shaking her hips. Often, she seemed too busy going through the motions to really cut loose.
You wonder what The Dance Floor judges would have made of her performance.
She admitted to the capacity crowd of about 9,000 that she was a little nervous as her previous stop on her current world tour was some time ago. But the four-month break since her concert in Malaysia was no excuse for the amateurish cartwheels that she attempted or the graceless fumbling with a rubber ball during the encore number, Dancing Diva.
None of this mattered to her fans, however, who responded to her every gesture with shrieks of approval. Lyrics were flashed on the two screens flanking the stage and the audience was happy to sing along, karaoke-style.
The crowd also took to her coy banter.“I was here 21/2 years ago. Have I changed? Have I become prettier?” she asked,and was rewarded with a resounding “yes”.
As the show drew to an end, Tsai told her adoring fans that their “performance here has left a deep impression on me”. The feeling was clearly mutual.
(ST)

I Don't Want To Sleep Alone
Tsai Ming-liang
So this is what a love story by director Tsai Ming-liang is like.In his eighth full-length feature film, the vagrant Hsiao Kang (Lee Kang-sheng) is nursed by Bangladeshi worker Rawang (Norman Atun) after getting beaten up on the streets of Kuala Lumpur.As he slowly recovers, he finds himself caught between the attentions of Rawang and the attraction he feels for Chyi (Chen Shiang-chyi), a coffee shop worker.Meanwhile, Chyi’s boss (Pearlly Chua) is also drawn to Hsiao Kang as he looks like her comatose son.
The movie is filled with inarticulate desire and impulses, and is set in a polyglot city filled with snatches of German opera, Malay folk song, Bollywood music, Cantonese opera and Chinese pop. The repressive silences of the characters are rendered all the more poignant by the contrast.
And who says that films are only for the eyes and ears? Tsai has conjured up a strong sense of smell in this film – emanating from a soiled and sullied mattress, the pool of dead water in the middle of an abandoned construction site, and the haze that hangs over the city. All these smells ground the movie in an earthy reality, even as the story takes stranger and darker turns.
While he still doesn’t like to move the camera much, preferring to let events simply unfold, the pacing here is less challenging than in films such as Vive L’Amour, which inched along slowly.
It helps that there’s plenty of his particular brand of absurdist humour in this film, including the surreal spectacle of a bulky mattress being lugged around KL.
And when the ominous haze envelops the city, there’s a priceless scene of Hsiao Kang and Chyi determinedly pressing on with their love-making in an orgy of coughing and desperate desire. You have to admire Lee and Chen, regulars in Tsai’s movies, for pulling it off with aplomb. First-time actor Norman delivers a truthful and touching performance, while stage veteran Chua plunges into the role fearlessly.
Tsai’s movies might not contain much dialogue, but there is always visual poetry to be found. The final scene is a sublimely tender and moving image that will stay with you for a long while.
(ST)

Exit A
Anthony Swofford
This book is a decidedly mixed proposition, and that’s assuming you make it past the halfway mark.
The first half of this debut fiction novel is concerned with 17-year-olds Severin Boxx and Virginia Sachiko Kindwall. They live in Yokota, an American air base on the outskirts of Tokyo, circa 1989. He’s a star football player and son of a colonel. She’s the half-American and half-Japanese daughter of the base’s general. Sparks of attraction inevitably flare up between the two.
But the course of young love never runs smooth. Virginia, who is going through a rebellious phase, acts out in a desperate and reckless fashion that changes everyone’s lives.
Unfortunately, Swofford’s pedestrian style of writing never really draws the reader in. He fails to fully convey the passion and excitement of youth gone astray. Instead, his oddly flat prose and stilted dialogue detract from the story.
After getting past the very long exposition, the latter half of the book jumps forward in time and deals with consequences and redemption. This is where it starts to get interesting as Severin goes into a downward spiral while Virginia picks up the pieces of her life.
Still, the same irritants remain, though mitigated by the twists and turns of the plot. And the ending, shot through with optimism and naivete, is just too neat and tidy.
Exit A? Felt more like No Way Out at some points.
(ST)